Last week I mentioned the Motion Capture technique that was used in The Hobbit movies. Motion Capture refers to the practice in filmmaking of recording the movement of actors and using the data to animate digital characters in order to get a more realistic and human like performance. As the technology gets better and better, we see this technique being used more often. Motion Capture gave us the Hulk in The Avengers, Davy Jones and his crew in The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise,and practically everything in Avatar. The Hobbit franchise is no stranger to Motion Capture either, using the technique to create many of the orcs, and even capturing the facial expressions of Benedict Cumberbatch to give Smaug the dragon more emotional range.
And you can't talk about motion capture with to bringing up the Master of Motion Capture Performance, Andy Serkis. It seems that Serkis has spent the better part of the last decade and a half wearing a motion capture suit, with the roles of Caesar in the last two Planet of the Apes movies, King Kong in the recent reboot, and of course, Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. His performances in all his roles are phenomenal, and to get an idea of the amazing work that goes into bringing some of his characters to life, check out this video on the Nature Video youtube channel.
Something about this particular medium I've kind of found fascinating and pleasing to look at. From what I have come to understand, the animation technique of rotoscoping involves drawing over various parts of a live action film frame by frame. One of the earliest examples I've seen of this technique has been the 1981 Canadian cult film know as Heavy Metal directed by Gerald Potterton.
Different objects and actors were rotoscoped to give the film its uniquely 80s feel to it. One of my favorite segments of this piece was the segment with the car in the opening segment known as "Smooth Landing."
Some of the other movies I have come to learn used rotoscoping were Max Fleischer (the creator of the process) cartoons with characters like Betty Boop and Coco the Clown from the Out of The Inkwell series. These segments mainly used their rotoscoping capabilities to capture the human movements of the actors for the very realistic movements they were seeking to convey. Of the various cartoons created by Fleischer, I would have to say one of my favorite ones from his group was the 1939 animated film Guliver's Travels. (link specific time in vid of rotoscoping example)
The other example of rotoscoping I've come to know growing up was the "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" scene of The Beatles Yellow Submarine film. This segment's subject matter of LSD is portrayed in a psychedelic manner as far as its art style.
One of the other examples of rotoscoping that has come to be one of my favorite examples of this style of animation is the 1986 award winning music video "Take On Me" by A-ha. The video uses a pencil sketch style of animation drawing the approximately 3,000 frames needed to make this video possible. The video's director . The original video for this song was the band members signing against a blue background, the didn't pick up on popularity with this video.
In 1985 Warner Brothers had the band re-record their song and using them in a revolutionary style of video. The Norwegian group teamed up with director Steve Barron, director of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." The other key player for this video's success was animator Michael Patterson, made it to the team at Warner Brothers thanks to his 1981 USC Student Academy Award winning film Commuter.
Of the different forms of animation I have come to see thus far in this class, this is the one I would want to master the most. I do realize that the process of drawing on several frames to get an effective display of this animation, but for seeing the end product of stuff like A-ha's famous video makes me want to at least give this style of animation the old college try for a pursuit.
It's finally here! The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey is now in theaters for everyone to experience and enjoy. I've been a Lord of the Rings fan since the first movies came out back in 2000, and have read the books twice since then (as well as any other readings that Tolkien and his son have offered). I was one of the few millions who went out and saw it at the midnight release and I can happily say that it does not disappoint. One issue I had was that I saw it in 3D and was forced to sit in the front row due to the theater being packed; so I unfortunately am not a good judge of whether or not the 48 FPS that everyone is talking about is a good or bad thing. The 3D was certainly a cool feature however, and I would like to see it again from a better perspective! The story holds up incredibly well. Peter Jackson does an absolutely faithful representation of the books through his movies, and that still holds true for the Hobbit. It is a little goofier than the original Lord of the Rings were, but that was expected, as the Hobbit is a more kid-friendly story to begin with. The effects are stunning as well. There is more magic this time around and fantastical elements that Jackson seems to rely more on green screen and digital animation. The video above shows how they work in the green screen technology as well as the new RED 3D camera systems. It's really interesting to see how goofy everything looks in real life, but is translated to look gritty and realistic in the film. This is in no way a bad thing either. The story is now framed as a tale being told to Frodo by Bilbo; which I feel justifies a lot of the more ridiculous and animated moments as exaggerations to the story. An Unexpected Journey is to be followed by two more movies, The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again.
Here's a link to the official Blog for the movies:
